Various medications are prescribed to combat illnesses and ailments. The use of prescribed medication, usually provided in pill form, has increased as medical science has progressed. Likewise, advancements in medical science have increased the selection, application and potency of prescription medications. Moreover, various diseases, conditions and illnesses that once required or allowed a patient to opt for hospitalization are now commonly treated on an out-patient basis through a prescribed medication regimen.
For the above reasons and more, many medications including many drugs in pill form are now regularly self-administered under little to no supervision. Self-administration of medication increases the possibility that a patient will fail to comply with directions regarding such things as dosage and timing. Non-compliance can greatly diminish the effectiveness of the treatment as well as increase the likelihood of harm to the patient, neither of which are desirable. Further, non-compliance can increase healthcare costs and consume healthcare resources that could be allocated elsewhere but for the non-compliance.
Non-compliance includes such things as underdosing, overdosing, abuse and dependency, which typically affect a patient's overall health and, in many cases, can be life-threatening. Non-compliance does not only directly affect the patient's health and economical wellbeing, but can indirectly affect the health and economical wellbeing of family, friends and society as a whole. Overall, non-compliance on a national and worldwide scale is costly.
Underdosing and overdosing often occur by simple mistake or neglect, particularly, when a patient is required to self-administer a complex regimen of medications. Nevertheless, both underdosing and overdosing can be intentional. For example, underdosing may be attempted by a patient to lower healthcare costs. Overdosing may be an unsound attempt to increase the therapeutic effectiveness of the medication or to cause self-inflicted harm as well as be the result of abuse or dependency.
Abuse such as recreational use or unauthorized distribution is always a societal concern. Often abuse is interrelated to dependency. The risk of dependency is of particular concern when the prescribed medication is known to be habit-forming or outright addictive. Although the risk of dependency is particularly acute when the patient is known to be high-risk (i.e. susceptible to abuse and addiction), dependency remains a risk with all patients.
Thus, the risks associated with non-compliance are a real concern for doctors, pharmacists and manufacturers, among others. As a result, doctors often under-prescribe certain medications, thereby, lessening the benefits of the medication. Doctors and other healthcare professionals are also forced to make dependency risk determinations about their patients, which can put the patient and the doctor in an uncomfortable, possibly, compromising situation.